Shadowsinger: The Final Novel of The Spellsong Cycle

by L. E. Modesitt

  Most of the faces around the table, even Richina’s, expressed a degree of puzzlement.

  “The people of the Mist Worlds know more about worlds—not just our world,” Secca replied. “Without that knowledge, the spell would not be possible.”

  Skepticism replaced puzzlement on Denyst’s face.

  “You can explain to me,” Secca began, “how a ship is built, and why the sails are set so. Could you do that, and could anyone build a ship like the Silberwelle, if you did not know how the winds blow and the oceans flow?”

  Denyst frowned.

  “Do you recall the spell that destroyed the crews of the Sturinnese ships in the battle off Encora?” Secca pressed.

  “I recall that it nearly killed you as well.”

  “Have you ever seen sorcery that kills scores without destroying anything around them? That spell was Lady Anna’s, and it worked because she knew something that we did not. This spell is based on something like that.”

  “You don’t want it used again?”

  “This is a different spell, and I’d rather not use it at all,” Secca admitted, “but I have nothing else that will serve.” Nothing that you have been able to find or write.

  “Your face says that more than your words, Lady Sorceress,” Denyst say dryly. “Mighty as this spell must be, would you mind if we were set on a seaward course when you sing it?”

  Secca shook her head. “That would be best. The other ships should be at least five deks farther at sea.”

  “That we will arrange.” After a moment, Denyst added, “We’ll be in the channel by sunset today or a glass before. Thought we’d stay at the edge of being able to see the isle of Stura itself, leastwise until after midday tomorrow.” The captain leaned back in her chair.

  Secca looked to Palian. “Can we do another run-through in, say, half a glass?”

  “We will be ready.” Palian’s voice was grave.

  Secca suspected it would be far graver if Palian understood the impact of the spell. Would the players play it well if they knew? Secca wondered, not for the first time.

  88

  Secca found her hands tightening around the port-side railing of the poop deck. She loosened one hand, lifted it, and flexed it, then the other. In the light afternoon air, even under full sail, the Silberwelle seemed to be creeping northwestward away from the center of the forty-dek-wide channel between Stura and the smaller isle of Trinn. The sky was deep blue and cloudless, and the rays of the late-afternoon sun were summerlike, so much so that Secca had taken out her green felt hat to protect her face. With the heat of the sun, the air smelled less salty, but Secca still felt itchy, as she had for most of the voyage, despite her use of song-sorcery to come up with the occasional bucket of fresh water for washing.

  Except for the nine Ranuan ships, the channel was empty. A brief look in the scrying glass earlier in the morning had shown no ships anywhere in the isles, except for three merchant vessels tied up at the port of Stura, four others at various other piers, and a number of fishing craft almost everywhere. To the west, the dark line that was the shore continued to become more distinct, but Secca could not make out the landmarks that Denyst and the lookouts reported.

  Secca flexed her hands again.

  Alcaren smiled at Secca’s impromptu exercise, but did not speak, his eyes looking aft to the sails of the other ships, now east of the Silberwelle, their courses diverging from that of the Silberwelle with every moment. For nearly two days, the Silberwelle had tracked the coastline of Stura, a land far too large in Secca’s mind to be called an isle.

  After a time, she eased toward the helm platform, near where Denyst stood.

  “How long?” Secca looked to Denyst.

  “Another glass and a half, I’d judge. Less if the wind picks up, and more, if it dies off. Looks to stay the same. The channel’s so calm it’s almost eerie.”

  “Can you tell how close we can get?”

  “Not yet. If it’s like this, with no reefs, we can get within a dek and still be in deep water.”

  “That’s important?”

  “In deeper water, the Sea-Priests could not raise a wave that would be more than a swell.”

  Would they raise a wave that could damage their own isle? Secca laughed to herself, realizing how stupid the question was. The Sea-Priests fought to the bitter end when cornered in Liedwahr. Why would that be any different in Sturinn?

  “They may not have sorcerers here who can do that, but I agree. I’d rather not chance that.” Secca frowned. “But they would have to travel to the shore opposite where we are. They don’t know where we’re headed, and we’re not going to be stopping or anchoring.”

  “That’s much to my liking, sorcerers,” Denyst said cheerfully. “Much.”

  “Thank you. I need to tell the players to get ready.” Secca nodded and turned away.

  “How long?” asked Alcaren, as Secca stepped back toward the railing.

  “A glass and a half, if the wind stays as it has. Could you tell Palian…?” Secca laughed. “What am I going to do? Stand here and wait?” She walked forward, turned, and climbed down the ladder to the main deck.

  About half the players were in shaded spots on the main deck, and Secca found Palian and Delvor deep in conversation near the starboard side in a patch of shade created by one of the lower sails. Delvor was nodding in agreement to whatever Palian said.

  Both glanced up, almost guiltily, as Secca neared.

  “Lady Secca,” Palian said.

  Delvor bowed, and then straightened and pushed back his forever-flopping lank brown hair. “Lady.”

  “The captain thinks we will reach our destination for sorcery in about a glass and a half,” Secca said. “I thought the players should start to make ready for a last run-through in about a glass. Is that satisfactory?”

  “Perhaps a bit before,” Palian replied. “I have some—still—who find preparing on a ship challenges their ability. Then, everything challenges the ability of one of them.”

  Secca smiled sympathetically. She had no doubt that the chief player was referring to the hapless Bretnay.

  Palian glanced at Delvor, then looked to Secca. “Delvor and I were talking over some matters. If you and I could repair to the upper deck…?”

  “Of course.” Secca wondered what the two had been discussing and hoped that it wasn’t a problem with the fifth building song or the players. But then, she hoped it wasn’t a major problem of any kind. There are going to be more than enough of those.

  Delvor nodded and stepped away, and the two women crossed the deck, angling aft past the mainmast. Secca gestured for Palian to precede her up the ladder to the poop deck. They moved to the railing a good five yards from where Alcaren stood.

  Palian looked at the sorceress. “You never did intend to land on any of the isles of Sturinn, did you, Lady Secca?”

  “No.” Secca eased the water bottle from her belt and took a swallow, looking toward the dark shore on the western horizon, a shoreline that neared and became more distinct with every fraction of a glass that the Silberwelle sailed northwest through the channel and toward the isle of Stura.

  “I know not what sorcery you plan,” Palian said slowly, “save that it will be terrible, and it will create for you the very problems that it did for Lady Anna.”

  “Does not all great sorcery create problems?” Secca glanced toward the horizon, then shook her head. “I am sorry, Palian. Those were unkind words, and unkindly said. I am worried. What do you mean?”

  “You are much more like her than you would admit, lady.”

  Palian would know. Of all in Liedwahr, she would know. “Others have said that, and perhaps because I looked up to her, I have become more like her than I would see.”

  “If your sorcery works, you will destroy Stura. That I know, for you would not risk close to a third of a season upon the open sea for anything less. If you succeed, every man on the face of Erde, saving your consort and the handful that know you, will wish you c
onsigned to eternal dissonance. You will be required to use sorcery more than you ever wish for years to come, and after that, every accident and misfortune in Liedwahr will be laid to your name. Men will whisper your name to sons in hatred for generations.”

  Alcaren had turned from his all-too-common position at the railing and slid closer to the conversation in his quiet way, so unobtrusively that neither had noticed until he nodded sadly and spoke. “She is right, my lady.”

  “Because I use sorcery?” asked Secca, fearing she knew the answer, but wanting someone else to say it. “Or because I have not created death and destruction with blades and bows, or tilling salt into croplands? Or slaying the firstborn of my enemies with bloody blades?”

  “Men hold great honor in using their strength to defeat other men,” Palian said. “Some women also take pride in the strength of their men. With your sorcery, you make their strength of arms as less than the cries of a newborn babe.”

  Secca laughed, mirthlessly. “Anna said the same, if in different words. Yet it is honorable for a strong-thewed man to slay scores who had the misfortune to be born less endowed with strength and muscles, and dishonorable for me or Alcaren or Richina to slay with song. People take with great willingness the roads and bridges we have built. Or the fords, and the wealth that has flowed from them. A sword builds no bridges and creates few golds. Nor will all the men and their blades or all those slain by blades build what we have built.”

  “I did not say what people feel is right, my lady,” Palian replied gently. “But from this day on, you can trust none you know not well, and perhaps not some of those.”

  “So I must follow in her footsteps in this as well?” asked Secca.

  “Had you any choice, in truth?” replied Palian. “You would do what is right, but what is right accomplishes nothing in our world, save when it is backed with great force.”

  “A right venal world it is,” Alcaren said dryly, “and harmony unsupported is inadequate.”

  “You two are so cheerful,” Secca said, forcing a laugh. “Yet you are right, and I will heed your observations, even as I wish it were otherwise.”

  “We all wish that, lady,” Palian replied, “but wishes have not the weight of blades or spells. Delvor also feels as do I, and we wished you to know that. So I think do Wilten and Delcetta, but they have not spoken to us so directly.”

  “You’re right.” Secca inclined her head. “Thank you. Thank you both.”

  “I need to ready my errant players.” Palian offered a wry smile and a parting nod, then headed forward to the ladder and descended to the main deck.

  “She is right, my lady,” Alcaren said quietly.

  “I know she is right,” Secca admitted. “I told her that, but I do not have to like what is so.”

  “You will have to do great sorcery in Neserea as well. The remaining Sturinnese will fight beyond their death. They know that, if you live, Sturinn’s way will die out in time. If you die, nothing will change, and in a generation, two at the latest, another Maitre will return to invade Liedwahr.”

  “There are other sorceresses,” Secca protested. “Jolyn is strong, and Anandra and Richina could also be most powerful in time.”

  “There are other sorceresses. There is none like you.”

  “You say that because you love me.” She grinned. “Or lust after me.”

  “I do indeed,” he replied with a smile, “but my words are true, and you know they are true.”

  “You believe them true,” Secca admitted.

  “Why do you have such trouble in believing them?” he asked. “Are there others who can raise storms and bridges or topple holds?”

  “There are. Belmar did some of that. So have the Sturinnese. They use their drums to create storms and fog and raise great waves.”

  “They are many. You are one.”

  “As Palian just told me, that is going to be a problem.” If you survive for it to be a problem. She smiled at Alcaren. “As you become more accomplished, it will be one for you as well, my love.”

  He nodded soberly. “Though I will never be able to do what you do.”

  “Do not say that yet.” Secca took a swallow from the water bottle and replaced it in her belt holder, cleared her throat, and began a vocalise.

  Alcaren stepped away and cleared his throat, following Secca’s example with a vocalise she had crafted for his deeper voice.

  One good thing about the salt air was that her cords felt clearer, and it took less time for her to warm up. By the third vocalise, she was as ready as she would be.

  Alcaren still had trouble with warming up, since he’d had to learn the vocalises from Secca, and they were far from second nature to him, but he finally turned to her. “I am ready, my lady.”

  From the main deck rose the sound of the players beginning to tune. Secca glanced forward, listening for a moment, then looked back toward the large isle once more.

  “Lady Sorceress?”

  Secca turned to see Denyst standing there.

  “Not so much time as I’d thought. There’s a reef.” Denyst pointed to the left. “The line of breakers there. Looks to be not quite a half-dek offshore. The darker water to this side, that shows that there aren’t any shallows, but those breakers directly ahead, that’s where the reef turns. Comes out farther on the other side of the bight. Means you’ll be closest on this end. I can bring us closer inshore here, but only for about a quarter glass, and then I’ll have to run due north, near-on straight out to sea.”

  “Less than a quarter glass before the second turn after the first?”

  “Give or take a bit.”

  “Then turn in, and we’ll sing as soon as we can set up when the ship’s steady.”

  With a nod, Denyst headed back toward the helm. “Two points to port!”

  “Two to port. Coming port.”

  Secca walked to the railing overlooking the main deck, catching Palian’s eye. “Time for a warm-up and one run-through. Then we’ll do the spell.”

  “The warm-up tune!” Palian’s voice lifted over the rush of the water against the hull of the Silberwelle and above the rustling and flapping of the sails above as the Silberwelle turned in response to Denyst’s command.

  Secca could discern, especially as outlined by the low southern sun that was about to set behind the headlands, the volcanic cone that formed the southern end of a half bay, the cone that was the most seaward of the line of volcanoes that ran across Stura from northeast to southwest.

  As the sun was dropping behind the higher hills beyond the shoreline, Richina had come up on deck, perhaps to take in the cool of the late afternoon, and to watch the spellsinging, but the younger sorceress remained within a yard of Denyst, and well away from Alcaren and Secca.

  Alcaren straightened and cleared his throat. “Are you ready?”

  Secca nodded.

  “Remember, my lady. Your words, and notes, and thoughts, only on the spell. Only on the spell.”

  “Only on the spell,” Secca repeated. Only on the spellsong…

  “The fifth building song at my mark…Mark!” Palian’s voice was calm and yet forceful.

  Alcaren and Secca moved outward along the railing separating the poop deck from the drop to the main deck until they stood in the corner between the starboard-side railing and the poop deck railing, facing into the early twilight, listening to the players playing through the fifth building song. Secca concentrated one last time on the words and images.

  When the players had finished the run-through, and checked tuning and their instruments, Secca considered the spell, wondering, far from the first time, how Anna had learned so much, and why so few in Liedwahr understood just how much her mentor had known about so many things.

  She glanced at Denyst, then turned back to look down on Palian and the players. “Stand by for the fifth building song.”

  “Standing by, at your signal, lady,” Palian returned.

  Secca took one slow deep breath, then a second, exhaling sl
owly. She looked toward Alcaren. He nodded.

  The redheaded sorceress raised her hand. “At your mark, chief player.” She lowered her arm and hand.

  For that instant, Secca felt that all Erde paused…as if to say that one time was ending, and another beginning.

  Then, Palian’s voice cut through the slowly fading light. “The fifth building song. At my mark…Mark!”

  From the first note, the players were strong, the notes clear, the energy focused, and the song lifted toward the shore, toward the isle of Stura, toward the volcanic cones that harbored hidden flame and fire.

  Secca and Alcaren joined together, perfectly, with the first note of the third bar.

  “Magma of the core, fire for Sturinn’s woe,

  rise and climb from the mantle deep below;

  explode in flame, and from the earth in fire flow.

  Searing every river, hill and dale, and plain

  with gas and ash and lava till none remain

  untouched, unstruck, and none escape the fire’s bane…”

  By the end of the first stanza a deep roaring and grumbling filled the air, and the waters between the Silberwelle and the white sand of the narrow beach below the steep bluffs shivered. The water calmed, unnaturally, and the spray and whitecaps that had marked where the ocean met the reef vanished. A flat and glassy stillness lay across the water like a blanket, and even the air seemed heavy, leaden.

  Secca forced her concentration back onto the notes, the words, and the images of the second stanza.

  “Lava rise, and lava flare, burst on all below;

  cover every town and road in fire’s glow,

  split the land and force the sea to fire know.

  With heat and steam and molten rock bring to bear

  all destruction of the earth and sea to Sturinn fair

  till none remain, and none will know what is buried there…”

  With the last note, a single off-key, two-toned note chimed through the air. Not as chord, but one note embodying, it seemed to Secca, all of harmony and all of dissonance.

  Her head throbbed, and knives of fire stabbed into her eyes, accompanied by flaring daystars, but her vision was not doubled, as with Darksong-tinged spellsong. Still, seeing was painful enough that tears oozed from her eyes, and her skull ached as if pounded by unseen hammers.